It’s all about the alchemy, baby. The superfoods we use in our chocolate bar recipes act as the perfect vehicle to get all the vitamins, nutrients and minerals into your body. Specifically, cacao is the ultimate alchemical delivery vehicle of medicinal substances into the body and amplifies the effect of medicinal substances taken with it. 

To learn more about each of the superfoods (maca, lucuma, camu camu, carob and reishi) in Viva Cacao chocolate, visit our ingredients page.

No. Chocolate should be stored just like wine, in a cool dark place. When you put chocolate in a fridge or freezer, you’re adding moisture to the equation, which is not ideal. Chocolate and water don’t mix… and if they do, it produces a fat and sugar bloom.

Because Viva Cacao is a small-batch chocolate producer, it is quite difficult, onerous and extremely expensive to attain certification as organic and fair-trade. Because the cost and process is tailored for bigger companies, there are many barriers for small businesses (and small-scale farmers). 

That being said, it is extremely important that we conduct our business operations in the most ethical, sustainable and environmentally-sensitive way possible. 

Our cacao is purchased from cooperatives that value human well-being, living wages, better living conditions, and environmental sustainability. The cacao itself is organically grown and certified by the cooperative, but unless we directly source it and grind it, we cannot get certified ourselves. To learn more about the cooperatives we source from, click here. 

 At Viva Cacao, we believe in using organic ingredients. All of the ingredients in our chocolate bars are organic, except for the vanilla beans.

Yes. Because we are a small-batch producer, it is easy to control our small facility. All of our chocolate bars are 100 percent dairy-free, gluten-free and soy-free. Not only do we feel that these ingredients are unnecessary fillers in chocolate, there are negative impacts associated with these ingredients as well.  

Instead of using soy lecithin, an unhealthy food additive, we use pure cacao butter…ensuring our chocolate is of the highest quality.

We truly believe in creating chocolate where you can get the full cacao taste without impacting it with dairy, gluten or soy.

We only use coconut sugar, the most sustainable sugar on the planet, in all of our chocolate bars. It’s low-fructose, nutrient-rich content gives it a serious edge over other sweeteners because it’s not refined or chemically-altered. It’s straight-up natural sap that is tapped from the coconut tree’s flower buds. It’s low on the glycemic index and abundant in 17 amino acids, B vitamins, vitamin C, FOS (promotes digestive health), potassium as well as other minerals.

Coconut trees can grow using very little water, can grow in extremely depleted soil conditions and require little maintenance. Coconut trees can produce 50 to 75 percent more sugar per acre than cane sugar making it a sustainable product, especially since one coconut tree can provide many other resources including coconut water, roofing material, etc. Coconut trees also use less than one fifth of the soil, nutrients and water compared to cane sugar.

Cane sugar, compared to coconut sugar, also has a much higher glycemic index, which means cane sugar spikes blood sugar levels faster than coconut sugar (not good!). Because coconut sugar contains insulin, it may slow the down the rate at which it’s absorbed into your bloodstream to a certain degree. Cane sugar does not contain insulin.

Check out my coconut sugar suppliers for more info:

• Coco Sugar
• Big Tree Farms

We require testing from our suppliers and all of the results have been below the threshold for what is considered safe.  For more info check out this article about heavy metals in chocolate.